Geometric aspects of higher-order eigenvalue problems. I: Structures on spaces of boundary conditions (Q1774687)

The authors are concerned with geometric aspects of regular eigenvalue problems of arbitrary order. They show that the geometric structure on the space of boundary conditions is responsible for the dependence of eigenvalues on the boundary conditions involved. In the process many new properties of these eigenvalues are revealed. They express the selfadjointness condition explicitly and obtain a manifold structure on the space of selfadjoint boundary conditions. Further, they give a complete characterizations of several subsets of boundary conditions. The shapes of some of these subsets are shown to be independent of the quasi-differential equation under consideration.